Without rewriting my abstract, my theses was on leadership in the context of the church. Basically I believe that Jesus was the greatest leader that ever lived. Yet I fear that the modern day church is opening its doors to leadership principles that have their roots in the business world. And the business world often has its roots in ideas and values that are contrary to the leadership practices of Jesus and principles of the scripture.
I am particulairly hard, I admit, on Maxwell, and particulairly hard on his book "The 21 Irrifutable Laws of Leadership" where I believe that more than half of those laws are absoloutly refuted by the life and ministry and teachings of Jesus. maxwell clearly states that Leadership is Leadership and leadership principles work in every and any situation. Wrong. Nada. Not true.
The result of that is an effort on my part to give a process whereby a church leader can look at a leadership idea, principle or process and determine if it is in line with the values and teaching of the scriptures.
OK, wake up now, I am done. :-)
2 comments:
True, we must define leadership in context of our faith first. So, what did you determine are the marks of Christian leadership? I'd also be interested to hear what books you recommend as the result of your research. I'm not a big Maxwell fan either, and there must be more to be said than what's in a popular book like Jesus, C.E.O..
I read through the scriptures and highlighted every instance where the scriptures had praised or highlighted a leadership characteristic or quality. I then catagorized them and discovered that there were basically nine characteristics, which incidentially closely alligned to the fruit of the spirit.
That was one very cool ah-ha moment!!
I read something over 300 books, both secualr and religious on leadership. The four that stand out in my mind are...
Courageous Leadership by Hybels
Visioneering by Andy Stanly
Spiritual leadership by Sanders and
Spiritual leadership by Blackaby...
and hopefully someday
Restoring Church Leadership (to the principles of the Bible) by DeMaere :-)
ken
Post a Comment